


Love and War

by ProfessorFlimflam



Category: Holby City
Genre: Angst, F/F, potential fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 16:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18694732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessorFlimflam/pseuds/ProfessorFlimflam
Summary: Serena hasn’t met her before, but when she hears the name Alex Dawson in Albie’s one night, she knows exactly who she is. Alex knows all about Serena, too - and she has just been to see Bernie in Nairobi.





	Love and War

**Author's Note:**

> A pre-emptive fix-it for whatever Alex Dawson’s reappearance might bring ;-)

The evening found Serena in Albie’s, deep in the arms of her first love, shiraz, and indulging in a night of maudlin reminiscence. That morning she had celebrated Guinevere’s first birthday with Jason and Greta, all the while painfully aware that the day also marked a year since the beginning of the end between her and Bernie. Bernie had promised to wait for eternity, but only scant months later, they had parted for the final time, love in their hearts but a hard won pragmatism driving them apart. There had been emails, text messages - even the occasional letter between them, but it was harder in some ways to maintain a friendship than it had been to sustain a relationship, and the messages had grown stilted, and eventually ceased altogether.

Ric had sat with her a while but had left to meet Françoise, urging Serena to call it a night as well, but she had lingered stubbornly. She glanced round the bar with bleary eyes. Dominic sat moodily picking the label off his beer bottle, and at the bar, Kian Madani was trying - and failing - to chat up a locum.

“Ah, c’mon, Ms Dawson - can I call you Alex? - give a guy a break - what’ll it take for you to have a drink with me?”  
It took a moment for Serena to place the name that was so familiar, but it fell into place as the woman replied tersely, “A sex change.”  
To his credit, Kian put up his hands in a gesture of surrender and apology, and with a boyish grin he laughed, “No harm, no foul,” and moved on.

Serena had never met Alex before, though she had heard about her, of course, and she couldn’t help staring. Her wine-dulled reflexes kept her gaze on that strong face a heartbeat too long, and catching her eye, it was clear that Alex certainly recognised her. She raised her wine glass sardonically in Alex’s direction, and wasn’t terribly surprised when the younger woman slid off the barstool to join her at her table.

“You’re Serena Campbell.” It wasn’t a question, but Serena inclined her head in acknowledgement none the less.  
“Captain Dawson, I believe,” she returned, touching the rim of her glass to Alex’s.   
They sat in curiously comfortable silence for a few minutes, neither woman attempting to conceal their appraisal of the other. It was Serena who spoke first.  
“So, what brings you back to Holby?”  
“A conference - I’m not staying. Managed to pick up a few hours work to offset the cost.”

Alex Dawson was a woman of few words, it seemed. Serena struggled to keep any sort of conversation going, and eventually she lapsed into silence. Then she shook herself. This is ridiculous, she thought, and said firmly, “Are we going to address the elephant in the room, do you think?”  
Alex’s laugh was just a huff of sharp breath, but it was a laugh nevertheless, and Serena released a little of the tension that she held in her frame.

“Seems inevitable, doesn’t it?” Alex said. “Do you hear from her much?”  
Serena swilled the wine round her glass. “Not so much these days. Communication was never our strong point. You?”  
Alex hesitated before she spoke. “I hadn’t done, for a long time. Then I heard that - that her _situation_ had changed,” she said carefully, not looking at Serena. “I went to see her, in Nairobi. Last week.”  
Serena stared at her, something leaden and painful pushing against her ribs.  
“You saw her? How is she? Is she - are you…?”

“No. I’d hoped that maybe… I told her before, come and find me once you’ve sorted your life out, and I thought maybe she had done. Well, perhaps she has - but turns out it’s too late for me.”  
She swallowed hard, and looked intently at the ceiling. Serena had a thousand questions to ask, but something told her to wait. Alex regained her composure, though eye contact was still too much for her. The words came to her now, though she spoke in brief sentences, as though she could only manage so much in one go.  
“She looks well - she looks great actually. She always suited a hot climate. And her trauma centre’s amazing - there’s nothing else like it out there, it’s making such a difference to people’s lives: she’s making a difference.”  
She managed a brief glance at Serena before finding something fascinating in the scratched veneer of the table.  
“I didn't tell her I was going - it was a pretty spur of the moment decision, to be honest. I rocked up at the trauma centre and tracked her down, took her by surprise. She was pleased to see me, I think - she put up a good show, anyway. Rearranged a couple of meetings, delegated her day’s surgery to someone else and we went out for a drive - just like old times. Except of course it wasn’t.”

The thing in Serena’s chest had subsided now, and she relaxed back into her chair a little, feeling more sober than she had done a few minutes ago. Alex’s body language spoke volumes to her, the slump of her shoulders and the set of her jaw saying as much as her words.

“The last time we were in a vehicle together, it blew up. We laughed about that, but it made me feel cold inside - it was the last time we were happy together. As soon as she was evacuated to Holby, it was over for us - Marcus saw to that.” She sighed, took a sip of her drink. “I was stupid to go. It was a mistake.”

Serena put a hand on her shoulder. “Not stupid at all. You needed to know, of course you did. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you.” They both knew it was a lie, but Alex let it pass. “You really think it was a mistake?”  
Alex shrugged, and Serena let her hand fall away.  
“Maybe not - I don’t know. We talked a lot, more than we ever had before. We should have talked like that a long time ago, but she never could. She’s changed - I think that’s down to you. I understand now what I couldn’t before. Me and Bernie, that was something that happened somewhere else, in a bubble. We had what we did in Helmand because it wasn’t real life. It was never going to work outside of that, I can see that now.”

She met Serena’s eye now, bold and almost audacious. “Sometimes I think, _if I’d seen the IED, if I’d steered a few inches to the right_ , we might still be there, me and her, still together. She wouldn’t have tried to fix her marriage, she wouldn’t have met you. But she did, and that’s that. She won’t ever be mine again.”

It was Serena who looked away now, laughing bitterly.  
“Well, that’s something we have in common, you and I. We’ve both loved and lost Bernie Wolfe.”

“No.” Alex shook her head slowly, corners of her mouth turned down in an expression of sullen disagreement. Serena’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, and Alex pushed on. “I’ve lost her. You? You could be with her any time you wanted. She told me what she said to you before - about waiting. She meant it, you know. Bernie doesn’t make promises she doesn’t mean to keep.”

Serena shook her head, bewildered. “No, no, she - things changed. We agreed, it wasn’t going to work.”

“You decided, she didn’t agree. That’s what she told me. You put her need for service ahead of her need for happiness, ahead of your own. She’d be back here in a heartbeat if you asked her to come. She’d find a way to make it work - but she knows it’s not what you want.”

“Not what I want? Bernie’s all I’ve ever wanted, though it took me long enough to work it out. But she needs to be where she is, and I need to be here for my family, I -”

“For Jason, right? Bernie told me about him. Does he really need you to be here all the time? How often does he call on you?”

“Oh, too often! Do you know, he phoned me last week to ask if it was normal for a one-year old to reject broccoli despite its high nutritional value, and did I think he should have her tested for an allergy? I sometimes think if I weren’t here, he’d just get on with things on his -” 

She broke off, realising what she was saying, and understanding for the first time that it was true: that perhaps many of Jason’s “emergencies” were things that he would cope with perfectly well if Auntie Serena were not there to run to.

“And that’s why you need to be here? To reassure Jason about broccoli?” Alex’s eyes were hot. “That’s what you’ve chosen over Bernie? I don’t understand you.”

Serena wondered if she knew about Elinor, about the empty place in her heart that Jason and Guinevere had moved into. She shook her head, saying, “It’s not that straightforward, it really isn’t, but if it’s any consolation I don’t entirely understand myself either.”

“Bernie said you couldn't see her being contented with domesticity, that you had her on some sort of heroic pedestal. But you know what, she’s not doing anything in Nairobi that she wasn’t doing here. It’s brilliant, but it’s the same work, just for people who haven’t had access to it before now - that’s the only thing that’s heroic about it.”

“I don’t know that heroic’s the word I'd use about her,” Serena protested, “And I certainly haven’t got her on a pedestal - if anyone's aware of the faults and foibles of Berenice bloody Wolfe it’s me. But she handed in her notice, quit her dream job - she shouldn’t have to do that to be with me. I wasn't going to let her throw it all away for my sake.”

“Jesus wept, why don’t you two ever _talk_ to each other?” Alex made an impatient gesture, and continued. “You thought you were clipping her wings, asking her to be with you, but you weren’t - you were _grounding_ her. She needs that, Bernie does. There’s something in her that makes her want to run, to fly, but you were the one thing that kept her feet on the ground. She’s adrift without you. She’s not unhappy - I don't mean that, but whether she knows it or not, she’s still waiting for you, and she always will now.”

She leaned forward and gripped Serena’s hand. “Bernie runs from things. She ran from her marriage; she ran from me - she ran from you at first. But she’s changed, I can see it in her. All she wants to do is run _to_ you now. But she won’t unless you ask her to - another bloody stupid promise she made. If anyone’s going to make a grand gesture, it’s got to be you.”

Serena understood what Bernie had seen in this passionate young woman, and found it baffling that she had refused her renewed advances, almost a year after she herself had set Bernie free. But against all sense, it seemed Bernie still loved her, was still true to her in spite of everything she had done.

“What will you do now?” She said.

Alex shrugged. “There’s plenty of work going for a decent anaesthetist. Locum here and there for a bit, I suppose. Maybe work with MSF for a while, get things out of my system for good now I know the score. And you? What will you do?”

Serena thought for a long moment, then drained her glass and stood up.

“I’m going to sleep on it, think about things with a clear head in the morning. And then I’m going to sit down and have a long talk with Jason.”

Slipping her coat on, she pressed Alex’s shoulder with gratitude and sympathy, and picked up her handbag.

“And then I’m going to book a flight to Nairobi. I think it might be time for that grand gesture.”


End file.
